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< Back Ron Brent Adjunct Professor About Ron Brent is a retired public servant who previously worked as Deputy Commonwealth Ombudsman, Commonwealth Ombudsman, was the first Australian Aircraft Noise Ombudsman, and the initial Chair of the Australian Research Integrity Committee.

< Back Ferdinand Sanchez Research Assistant About Ferdinand Sanchez II is a research assistant at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. He recently completed his bachelor's degree in Sociology at the University of the Philippines Diliman in 2022.

Former PhD student < Back Pierrick Chalaye Former PhD student About Pierrick Chalaye's work focuses on global and comparative environmental politics, cross-cultural approaches to decision-making and participatory and deliberative democratic theories and practices. H is now a research associate with the Centre.

< Back DEMOCRACY BEFORE LIBERALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Josiah Ober, Stanford University Tue 6 November 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract What did democracy mean before it was hybridized as "liberal democracy"? Is democracy without liberalism necessarily illiberal, an oppressive tyranny of the majority? Combining history with political theory, this talk aims to restore the basic meaning of democracy as collective and limited self-government by citizens. That, rather than majority tyranny, is what democracy meant in ancient Athens, long before the development of modern liberalism. Participatory self-government is the basis of political practice in “Demopolis,” a hypothetical modern state sketched as a thought experiment. Demopolis’ residents aim to establish a reasonably secure, moderately prosperous, and non-tyrannical community, where citizens govern as a collective, both directly and through representatives. They willingly assume the costs of self-government because doing so benefits them, both as a group and individually. Basic democracy, as exemplified in real Athens and imagined Demopolis, can provide a stable political foundation for a liberal society. It may also offer a possible way forward for religious societies seeking a realistic alternative to autocracy. About the speaker Josiah Ober, Mitsotakis Professor in the School of Humanities and Science at Stanford, works on historical institutionalism and political theory, focusing on the political thought and practice of the ancient Greek world and its contemporary relevance. He is the author of a number of books mostly published by Princeton University Press, including Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (1989), Political Dissent in Democratic Athens (2008), Democracy and Knowledge (2008). He has also published about 75 articles and chapters, including recent articles in American Political Science Review, Philosophical Studies, Hesperia, Polis, and Transactions of the American Philological Association. Previous Next

Research Intern < Back Atosha Birongo Research Intern About Atosha Birongo is doing research on citizen participation in the world's first Global Assembly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency. She is a third-year student majoring in Government and Policy at the Faculty of Business, Government and Law. She joined the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance as research intern in 2022.

< Back Learning to value nature? International organizations and the promotion of ecosystem services Hayley Stevenson, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella Tue 11 December 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract The idea of valuing nature has become a core element of contemporary sustainable development and green economy agendas. This has been enabled by the widespread acceptance of the ‘ecosystems services’ concept, which tries to capture the value of the environment for human wellbeing. As the ecosystem services concept is embedded in development planning and economic policy-making, it is important to understand the opportunities it creates for environmental conservation and social development, and its inherent tensions and limitations. This requires a degree of reflexivity in policy-making to ensure that policies are informed by the historical lessons of ecosystem services experiments, the diverse knowledge of contemporary stakeholders, and self-critical awareness of uncertainty and multiple ontological perspectives. An international research team led by Hayley Stevenson and James Meadowcroft is studying the emergence and political uptake of this concept at international and national levels. In this presentation Hayley will share some initial findings about how nature valuation has been integrated into the work of international environmental and development agencies, and the patterns of reflexivity we observe. These findings also cast doubt on the political future of the ecosystem services concept. About the speaker Hayley Stevenson is Associate Professor in International Relations at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina), and Reader in Politics at the University of Sheffield (UK). She is the author of Institutionalizing Unsustainability, Democratizing Global Climate Governance (with John S. Dryzek), and Global Environmental Politics: Problems, Policy, and Practice. She is currently leading an international project with James Meadowcroft, “Ecosystem Services: Valuing Nature for Sustainable Development and a Green Economy”. Previous Next

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back Building Democratic Resilience - Report Launch 13 Oct 2022 On 13 October, we launched the report Building Democratic Resilience - Public Sphere Responses to Violent Extremism, commissioned by the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet. The launch took place at the ANU, hosted by the F reilich Project for the Study of Bigotry . Panelists included Dr Jordan McSwiney, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance (CDDGG) at the University of Canberra, Dr Emily Corner, Senior Lecturer of Criminology at the Centre for Social Research and Methods at the Australian National University, and Pia van de Zandt, Director of the Connected Communities team in Department of Premier and Cabinet, NSW. Pictured: Selen A. Ercan (CDDGG), Peter Balint (UNSW), Pia van de Zandt (NSW Government) and Jordan McSwiney (CDDGG)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow < Back Francesco Veri Postdoctoral Research Fellow About Francesco Veri is specialized in the field of configurational comparative methods with an emphasis on fuzzy logic applied to social sciences. His methodological research focuses on concept operationalization and strengthening the quality of parameters of fit in set theoretic methods.

< Back Democratic proceduralism and its limits: From philosophical principles to political institutions Dannica Fleuss, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg Tue 25 February 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In recent years Western democracies’ legitimacy has been heavily under attack. The decline in public support for democratic institutions manifests particularly in anti-elitism, the rise of populist and post-truth politics. A branch of political science- and public policy-scholars suggested to counteract such developments by strengthening the role of experts in political decision-making (e.g., Brennan 2016, chapter 8; Willke 2007; 2014). Such expertocratic proposals for reforming existing democratic institutions and political practices, however, contradict normative perspectives that consider the equal participation of all affected to be the core requirement of democratic legitimacy. Proceduralist political philosophy proposes a “genuinely democratic” understanding of democratic legitimacy: Proceduralists argue that the equal inclusion of all affected citizens must be the only criterion for legitimacy (Fleuß 2017; see Peter 2008; Estlund 2007; Christiano 2004). This philosophical stance has so far not been translated into institutional design and application-oriented proposals for political practice. To provide a comprehensive conception of proceduralist legitimacy, I aim at “bridging the gap” between proceduralist philosophy and application-oriented discussions of institutional design. I provide a brief overview of the argumentative path that starts out by abstract philosophical debates and, guided by a meta-theoretical framework, ultimately proposes concrete suggestions for institutions. Against this background, the lecture focuses on two claims that are at the heart of the book’s approach: A Critical Theory-inspired conceptualization of proceduralist legitimacy can provide a coherent and appealing normative ideal for contemporary democratic politics (and thereby avoids the major pitfalls of “classic” proceduralist approaches). Radically proceduralist institutional devices must be created, criticized and, potentially, changed by the citizens of democratic societies. To realize this ideal in political reality and to create institutional devices for this purpose, we must (a) adopt a systemic perspective on ‘institutional design’ and (b) create institutions that facilitate the reversibility of decisions and procedural regulations. References Christiano, T. (2004). The Authority of Democracy. Journal of Political Philosophy, 12(3), 266– 290. Estlund, D. M. (2008). Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fleuß, D. (2017). Prozeduren, Rechte, Demokratie. Das legitimatorische Potential von Verfahren für politische Systeme. [English Title: “The Normative Legitimacy of Democracies. On the Limits of Proceduralism”]. Dissertation, Heidelberg University. Online: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/23203/. Peter, F. (2008). Pure Epistemic Proceduralism. Episteme, 5(1), 33–55. Willke, H. (2007). Smart governance: governing the global knowledge society. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus/Chicago University Press. Willke, H. (2014). Demokratie in Zeiten der Konfusion. Berlin: Suhrkamp. About the speaker Dannica Fleuss is a postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer in political theory at Helmut Schmidt University (Hamburg) and a research associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She holds an MA in philosophy and political science and a PhD in political science from Heidelberg University. From 2014 until 2017, Dannica worked as a lecturer at the departments of political science and philosophy at Heidelberg University. In 2018 and 2019, she spent research visits at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance (University of Canberra) and the Centre for the Study of Democracy (University of Westminster). Her research deals with conceptualizations of democratic legitimacy, philosophy of science and deliberative democracy. Dannica’s postdoctoral project aims at developing a measurement of nation states’ democratic quality that is firmly grounded in deliberative democratic theory. Previous Next

< Back Boosting the legitimacy of global climate governance: How can meta-deliberation help? Jonathan Pickering, University of Canberra Tue 13 September 2016 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Many commentators have voiced concerns about the legitimacy of the multilateral climate change regime due to its limited progress in slowing greenhouse gas pollution as well as its cumbersome decision-making processes. Recent accounts of deliberative democracy argue that, in order to be legitimate, deliberative systems must cultivate a capacity for “meta-deliberation”, namely critical reflection about the nature, scope and structure of the deliberative system itself. Stevenson and Dryzek (2014) conclude that the climate regime lacks sufficient capacity for meta-deliberation. Yet, the concept of meta-deliberation requires further theoretical elaboration, and more in-depth empirical analysis is needed on the conditions under which meta-deliberation could work in practice. In this paper I outline an account of meta-deliberation and compare it with related concepts such as reflexivity and meta-governance. I argue that one important function of meta-deliberation is to deliberate about the extent to which decision-making processes are centralised or decentralised (“polycentric”). I then apply this analytical framework to a case study of meta-deliberation about one prominent aspect of the global climate regime in which decision-making arrangements are significantly fragmented: funding to assist developing countries’ efforts to address climate change. I present preliminary results of a case study of the Standing Committee on Finance, which was established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010 to improve coherence and coordination in the delivery of climate finance. Drawing on documentary analysis and observation of a recent Forum held by the Committee in the Philippines, the case study assesses the Committee’s potential to engage in meta-deliberation about how decision-making on climate finance should be distributed across multilateral, national and sub-national institutions. About the speaker Jonathan joined the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance in 2015. He is a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Professor John Dryzek on his Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship project, ‘Deliberative Worlds: Democracy, Justice and a Changing Earth System’. He completed his PhD in philosophy at the Australian National University, based in the Centre for Moral, Social and Political Theory and graduating in 2014. His thesis explored opportunities for reaching a fair agreement between developing and developed countries in global climate change negotiations. Before joining the University of Canberra he taught climate and environmental policy at the Crawford School of Public Policy at ANU, and has been a Visiting Fellow at the Development Policy Centre at ANU since 2014. Jonathan’s research interests include the ethical and political dimensions of global climate change policy, global environmental governance, development policy and ethics, and global justice. He has a Masters' degree in development studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and undergraduate degrees in arts and law from the University of Sydney. Previously he worked as a policy and program manager with the Australian Government's international development assistance program (AusAID, 2003-09). Previous Next

< Back DECOLONIZING DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY In this talk Bobby Banerjee provides a decolonial critique of received knowledge about deliberative democracy. About this event In this talk Bobby Banerjee provides a decolonial critique of received knowledge about deliberative democracy. Legacies of colonialism have generally been overlooked in theories of democracy. These omissions challenge several key assumptions of deliberative democracy. Banerjee argues that deliberative democracy does not travel well outside Western sites and its key assumptions begin to unravel in the ‘developing’ regions of the world. The context for a decolonial critique of deliberative democracy is the ongoing violent conflicts over resource extraction in the former colonies of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Banerjee argues that deliberative democracy cannot take into account the needs of marginalized stakeholders who are defending their lands and livelihoods. Consequently political corporate social responsibility and multi-stakeholder initiatives, which reflect deliberative processes at the market-society interface can diminish the welfare of communities impacted by extraction. Several governance challenges arise as a result of these power asymmetries and Banerjee develops a translocal governance framework from the perspective of vulnerable stakeholders that can enable a more progressive approach to societal governance of multinational corporations. Bobby Banerjee is Professor of Management and Associate Dean of Research & Enterprise at Bayes Business School, City University of London. He researches and teaches on corporate social irresponsibility, unsustainability, climate justice and decolonial resistance movements. Seminar series convenors Hans Asenbaum and Sahana Sehgal . Please register via Eventbrite . Previous Next

< Back Overview of the law of deliberative democracy Ron Levy, Australian National University Tue 24 February 2015 11:00am - 12:00pm Fishbowl, Building 24, University of Canberra Abstract Laws have colonised many corners of democratic practice. After several decades of the juridification of politics, the so-called ‘laws of politics’ now are often integral to (even constitutive of) the sites of political deliberation. Yet much deliberative theory neglects to address law as a set of norms whose influences on political practice are both substantial and varied. Equally, legal scholars have been slow to join the deliberative turn in research. Few scholars on either side of the disciplinary divide have sought comprehensively to bridge studies of the law of politics with deliberative theory. My current research (with co-author and co-CI Prof Graeme Orr) aims to do exactly this. In the seminar I will update Centre members on the progress of our book and ARC project entitled ‘The Law of Deliberative Democracy’. Making use of the opportunity of an audience familiar with deliberative theory, I will focus not on narrow examples from the book, but on overall arguments. A key contention is that, though the laws of politics may often frustrate the best laid plans of deliberative democrats, this outcome is not inevitable. In particular, it is not the form of common-law decision-making that determines law’s fit to deliberative democracy, but only the particular substantive legal choices that judges make. I will touch on three areas of doctrine in the law of politics (relating to political liberty, equality, and anti-corruption) where such judicial choices have either thwarted or helped to realise deliberative democratic ideals. About the speaker Dr Ron Levy researches and writes on public law and political theory, especially constitutional law, the law of politics, and deliberative democracy. He is the winner of several research awards including grants from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Australian Research Council. Ron is currently a chief investigator on two ARC Discovery Projects: 'The Law of Deliberative Democracy: Theory and Reform' (DP130100706, 2012-2015, with Graeme Orr) bridging research on election law with deliberative democratic theory and 'Confronting the Devolution Paradox' (DP140102682, 2013-2016, with AJ Brown, Robyn Hollander, Paul Kildea, Rodney Smith, Richard Cole and John Kincaid) on federalism and political culture. Ron has also been guest co-editor of the Election Law Journal's 2013 symposium issue on 'the law of deliberative democracy' and is co-writing a monograph: The Law of Deliberative Democracy (Routledge, under contract, with Graeme Orr). Ron's other projects include studies of constitutional reform, including prospects for reform via deliberative democracy. He has been a Visitor at Yale Law School, Cambridge University and King's College London. At the ANU College of Law, he convenes Advanced Constitutional Law and Torts, and gives seminars in Commonwealth Constitutional Law. Previous Next

Faculty Affiliates Jonathan Pickering Faculty Affiliate View Profile Jean-Paul Gagnon Faculty Affiliate View Profile

< Back Julien VryDagh Associate About Julien Vrydagh researches the policy impact of mini-publics in Belgium. He conducts case studies to trace the policy influence of mini-publics, and compares Belgian mini-publics with a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis in order to understand the conditions under which they succeed or not in exerting an influence.

Industry Partners We work with government, international organisations, NGOs, and the creative industry to translate deliberative theory into practice. Democracy R&D Our Centre is proud to be part of Democracy R&D–a global consortium of advocates, scholars, and practitioners of deliberative democracy. Our Centre is represented by Nick Vlahos, Nardine Alnemrand and Nicole Curato in their activities. Connecting to Parliament A collaboration between Centre for Deliberative democracy and Global Governance and the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability.

< Back Maija Setala Associate About Maija Setälä specializes in democratic theory, especially theories of deliberative democracy, democratic innovations, e.g. citizens’ initiatives and deliberative mini-publics, and political trust. She is a Professor in Political Science at the University of Turku.

Former PhD student < Back John Parkinson Former PhD student About John is a Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at Maastricht University and holds the post of Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance.

< Back John Parkinson Associate and Former PhD Student About John is a Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at Maastricht University and holds the post of Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance.